Lost in Translation

A Question of Visualisation

We got together on Tuesday morning to settle on a definite visualisation of our intentions. With our mentor's inputs and the results form Friday's experience prototype in mind we thought of looking into other methods for the final result.

Was an object-based visualisation a solution? Could storytelling enhance an object? We looked into using projections that could animate an objects surface or structure, similarly seen at iArt's Interactive Book or Pipilotti Rist's exhibition at the Zurich Kunstmuseum in 2016. Through such methods we saw a possibility of visualising the stories and experiences in a more visual and maybe interactive way.

One of Pipilotti Rist's exhibits at Zurich Kunsthaus in 2016

Or could a visual abstraction illustrate social isolation through language-barriers of internationals? We had a visual picture of ripples instantly being subdued by bigger waves - was this a form of showing that internationals drown under the foreign culture and language?

During a short exercise of enacting storyboards as a way of envisioning possible results, we used a plastic sheet to abstract the flow of communication when speaking in the same language. Once an international joined the conversation the flow shortly got interrupted before returning to its natural state. However, the international never found an opportunity to join into the flow and therefore felt isolated from the others.

Dead-End

By the end of the day we felt very lost. None of our explored visualisations really convinced us. They could easily be interpreted in a completely wrong / different way or didn't quite portrait our goal of raising awareness. There was also a question of realisation - what was technically possible within the next two weeks? 

We shared our struggles with our mentors the next day which is when we realised that we had misinterpreted their inputs. By hearing the comment of "striving higher" the week before, we initially understood that our previous visualisation methods were not enough. We thought we needed to go for bigger and more complex realisations.

The form of creating an experience through a performance was definitely the correct way to follow. Our mentors explained that we should keep working on such visualisations. They also suggested that we returned to our research and focus on what caused us to want to raise awareness.

By the end of the mentoring we were back to where we were a few days ago - we return to the idea of portraying stories by letting internationals explain their experiences and problems. We experienced the impact these stories can have ourselves - Ju's story had inspired us to focus on the subject of raising awareness and had also caused Jelena, one of our local interviewees, to share her contact details with her so that they could meet up. 

The week before, we had felt that this solution was rather basic. But by trying to find a different, more elaborate solution we had driven ourselves into a dead-end. 

However basic an idea's visualisation may be at first, it does not necessarily mean it's a bad one.